My Grammar and I (Or Should That Be 'Me'?): Old-School Ways to Sharpen Your English

See Me After Class: The Venables’s came to our house this weekend.
Do not make a family name plural by using an apostrophe.

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Exceptions: When a name ends in an s with a hard z  sound,  we  don’t  add  any
ending  to  form  the  plural.  We  have  the  Morrises  and  the  Richards  coming  to
lunch.  It  is  equally  acceptable  to  say  The  Misses  Brown  are  coming  to  tea  ,  or
The Miss Browns are coming to tea.
Compounding the problem
The  rule  with  plural  compound  nouns  is  to  pluralize  the  base  element  of  the
compound noun – that is, generally, the most important element of the word or
phrase:
We’ve got our mother-in-laws staying so we’ve nipped out for a pint is wrong;
Mothers-in-law and daughters-in-law don’t always get along is right, because the
key  element  of  the  phrase  is  mother  (or  daughter  ).  Ask  yourself  What  sort  of
mother? A mother-in-law. Similarly:
The role of Secretary of State varies between countries, and in some cases there
are multiple Secretaries of State .